Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hey Everett

No worries at all really appreciate your input !

I cant share since whilst i know Moz community a highly ethical bunch of lovely people this is a new very precious client of mine i cant afford to risk losing should anyone see and try and pitch for the biz, as unlikely as that is i cant risk the possibility but have pm'd you just in case your happy to have a look.

I started this thread after looking at GWT and looking at the reports.  I have told dev to 301 any old pages to their new equivalents or HP if not.  Then to apply code as per Altecs advice to to batch process 301's for any remaining.  They are increasing at aprox 150 new page not founds each day so something clearly going on but hopefully if dev deploy all the above that should reverse the ever growing spike do u think ?

I have told them once they do that to mark all as fixed in GWT and then just attend to any that recur afterwards on a case by case basis.

Any further help advice much appreciated, especially if above unlikely to resolve ?

All Very Best

Dan

Thanks Altec

There are only 2x soft 404's being reported

Also im asking them to redirect any 404 to the nearest equivalent page or the home page if no new similar equivalent page.  Any others will be dealt with by following your code advice for those occuring due to parameters etc

I take it that if do both above that will avoid any soft 404's ?

Cheers

Dan

Thanks so much for taking the time to comment Everett, I really appreciate it !!

i just tested that and can confirm entering a nonesense url inc client domain, it is resolving in a 404 page.

Since thats the case can i now ignore this bit:

"If you redirect the user agent to another URL before returning the status code they (e.g. Googlebot) will never know that the original URL they were trying to access has been "removed" and will assume it has just been redirected".

However 404s are growing further every day by the hundreds so does that mean likely as a result of the below?:

"Furthermore, as the parameter following the ?aspxerropath=..." changes each time you will have more and more 404 URLs instead of just the one."

Any further help/advice/clarification re above much appreciated since i ultimately want to take the aspects of this thread that still apply into an email to dev to help them resolve this asap ?

Very Many Thanks

Dan

thanks again Altec !

yes my clients just migrated to a new site and typically Google launched Panda 4 straight after so not sure whats causing what at the moment and suppose should wait and see after another week or two before drawing any conclusions.

However page not found errors have spiked and continue to grow at a rate of knots

The clients site is on a windows server so don't think that apaache code would do, dont suppose you know what it would be for windows would you ? or i take it this is something clients developers should know in which case i will simply instruct them to add relevant code ?

I have told dev to redirect ALL old content pages to new equivalent page, so if they add above type code after that then should deal with any remaining non content type page not founds ?

Thanks again Alec !!

thanks Keri

any  ideas though aprox how long G takes to update/pass authority of an old page to new one via a 301 ?

Hi

How long aproximately does G take to pass authority via a 301 from an old page to its new replacement page ?

Does Moz Page Authority reflect this in its score once G has passed it ?

All Best
Dan

Many Thanks Altec !

Any harm in ticking them all off and seeing which return ? Should be more thorough shouldn't it than doing a sample ? and also dev say that many 404's refer to a really old version of the website before they were involved so doubt these are still really there....although the spike only occurred after new site went live so i'm slightly dubious about that response from them.

The list has also grown from x660 to x715 in 24 hours so looks like more being discovered!

Any ideas why Moz Analytics is not discovering & reporting these in crawl error reports (saying only 3x 404s remain compared to GWT saying x715 page not founds) ?

Also what about the kind of pages starting with below, being reported as 404, do they matter ?:

| Info/FileNotFound.aspx?aspxerrorpath= |

Any ideas re my second question, how long does G take to pass authority via a 301 from an old page to its replacement aproximately ? and does Moz Page Authority reflect this in its score once G has passed it ?

Sorry for more questions any feedback much appreciated

Many Thanks

Dan

Hi

I have been submitting MA crawl reports to clients developers post going live with a new site migration and instructing them to set up 301's for any 404's still reporting which they have now done (despite instructing them not to go live until all old url's mapped & 301'd to new replacement page, or HP if no replacement).

1) When i look in GWT crawl errors there has been a spike since going live with 660 'page not founds' being reported compared to x11 404's in MA. Could there be a 'lag' in GWT reporting and actually they have already been dealt with just not updated by GWT in this report and the MA report is more accurate ? Should i wait and see/or mark as fixed and see if return tomorrow, or tell dev to immediately investigate ? I have checked some samples links and they are going to 404 type pages so presume they are still broken and urgent issue dev must fix immediately ?

2) How long does it take aprox for the page authority to be transferred via a 301 redirect to a new page since i see some category pages that had good PA and have been 301'd to new category urls, are now showing a PA of just 1 !!

Cheers

Dan

cool cheers

really !? i see it as other way round.  SEO text short an kw stuffed and currently long 3-400+ highly descriptive and good quality content copy that includes kw simply by virtue of the being descriptive and useful

many thnaks for further comments Kate

Sorry but whats PLA ?

No but i will now

All Best

Dasn

grt thanks Dennis

yes that what i meant

thanks for your comments Richard & Dennis

what about sub categories and pages that do still exist either under other categories in the case of sub cats, or under sub cats in the case of some products ? I take it they need 301 redirecting if different url, but if flat naviagation url format used then i take it no 301 needed since its the same address ?

cheers

dan

Hi

Whats best practice when removing entire site sections from an e-commerce store due to ending those lines and not having similar alternative pages to redirect them too ?

Should you remove pages in GWT etc ?

Any other measures to prevent probs such as 404 spikes etc ??

Cheers

Dan

i thought pages needed loads of good copy 500+ words ideally ? instead of old fashioned seo text

Thnaks for commenting Alrockn !

it definately fits the content of the page, just worried about it increasing kw rich word count & repeating key phrase sentence. but if i understadn u correctly then so long as fits content which it does then should be ok ?

ok thanks Chiaryn

is that the actual name of the moz crawler (to allow in Robots) simply rogerbot ? or any other characters etc ?

Also is it not the case that even when blocked by robots.txt G can still crawl/index it once password removed, think i read few comments somewhere on Moz that can still happen somehow ?

Please advise asap ?

Many Thanks

Dan

Hi

I have a client project who's developers platform is populating the category part of the breadcrumbs with the header tag.  Since these include the pages primary target keywords/phrase they are being repeated in the breadcrumbs increasing the keyword/phrase count on the page as well as repeating/duplicating the sentence.

Can this cause problems ? or not because Google knows its not part of the page content/body copy (because its a breadcrumb) ?

Cheers

Dan

many thanks Dana

Hi

Whats the consequences of hiding half of the lovingly crafted body copy/written content (good quality modern version of what we used to call seo text) i have written for a clients main site sections and then having a 'read more' button to reveal ?

I have written 500+ words for each page but client wants to reduce word count displayed since thinks looks too 'wordy'!

I know that this is possible and used to be fine if done in a manner that was still crawlable, is this still the case ?

Cheers

Dan

thanks David !

i dont suppose either of you are able to help at all with this related question:

http://moz.com/community/q/site-crawl-errors-download-list-of-all-urls

i dont suppose either of you are able to help at all with this related question:

http://moz.com/community/q/site-crawl-errors-download-list-of-all-urls

Hi Andy

Screaming Frog does have password access feature for your info i have just tried it

All Best

Dan

Thanks Matt

I have got screaming frog and can confirm that it has password access feature, but i really want Moz to be able to access too, i would have thought they should have this option somewhere. Are you saying Moz crawls have more info than SF (re 'moz level' analysis) ?

Dev site better password prtected than robots arnt they i think ?

Cheers

Dan

Hi

Ive provided my clients developers with the pdf reports of crawl errors but these seem to miss some urls

I see there are lots of csv file download/email options

Will the email csv button send a report of everything listing all urls that are missing from the pdfs ? if not will the more specific csv reports

Would be good if i can press 1 button and get all issues listed with all urls

It does look like this happens but i just want confirmed best way asap since need to provide reports urgently, any guidance much appreciated ?

All Best

Dan

Hi

Ive instructed clients to password protect dev areas so dont get crawled and indexed but how do we set up Moz crawl software so we can crawl theses sites for final check of any issues before going live ?

Is there an option i havnt seen to add logins/passwords for crawl software to access ?

cheers

dan

isnt cpc type activity going to show in Paid search ?

when i click on 'other' within channels it shows 4 sub channels no 1 is Google and the others are know activity like Buffer.

When i click on Google there's no further breakdown apart from the traffic details (sessions/goals etc).

ok thanks Kate

Seems a tad strange though since all known paid channels being reported elsewhere.

It would be good to know if theres a way to find out whats causing it since all paid campaigns, PPC, emails, display, etc etc being reported in other places and traffic from this 'Google Other' source is 4x current organic search traffic

All Best

Dan

what about what these guys are saying:

http://moz.com/community/q/analytics-other

its averaging 4x the traffic reported in organic search acquisition !? which seems a bit weird, any ideas whats likely causing this google traffic reported in 'other' ?

Thanks

yes i can see that but want to know what kind of traffic it is, say if its saying 'google' is that search engine traffic and can seo work take the credit for it ?

cheers

dan

Many Thanks for that Kate !

Thanks Joel that seems to be the best way forward (dedicated new campaign) so many thanks !

Dan

Hi

My UK based client is about to target the USA via a domain.com/US/ subfolder

For reporting purposes do you (either Moz staff or Mozzers with experience or pref both) recommend setting up a new campaign or simply adding US engines and KW to existing campaign ?

In regard to all other reporting options as well so not just keyword rankings

All Best

Dan

When i look in GA under Channels (under Acquisition) 'other' is listed

What is 'other' ?

I have been told its other unidentified channels as they did not allow 3rd party cookies or surfers were in anonymous/private mode.   Other is usually organic traffic that couldn't be identified for the aformentioned reasons. This data is encrypted and available but it violates Google guidelines as they are not allowed to pass personal info//data to third parties so it is automatically filtered. But they are not 'Not Provided' (since that still shows under organic) but is usually/mainly some form of organic visits.

Hence Seo can take credit for much of that traffic, is this correct ?

Many Thanks

Wow ! Thanks fir that Vahe, very useful indeed !

ok great thanks !

interesting stuff Andrew, truncating at 66 characters, that seriously reducing title tag real estate!!

They have been re-writing titles for a while now so agreed nothing to do with recent serp page design update

hi

i know title length displayed is now based on pixels rather than character but still thought safe to have titles up to 70 characters long before they are truncated

i see that on the new G serps designed pages titles that were showing in full on old design (without truncation) are now being truncated.  As in same title shows fine (displays in full) on old design serps but truncated on new designed page

Anyone else notice this ?

Cheers

Dan

When i look in GA under Channels (under Acquisition) 'other' is listed

What is 'other' ?

I have been told its other unidentified channels as they did not allow 3rd party cookies or surfers were in anonymous/private mode.   Other is usually organic traffic that couldn't be identified for the aformentioned reasons. This data is encrypted and available but it violates Google guidelines as they are not allowed to pass personal info//data to third parties so it is automatically filtered. But they are not 'Not Provided' (since that still shows under organic) but is usually/mainly some form of organic visits.

Hence Seo can take credit for much of that traffic, is this correct ?

Many Thanks

Thanks for that Chiaryn !

Does automatically subscribe u if you post there ? since i didnt see a subscribe button

All Best

Dan

ok cool thanks for your comments and feedback.

pls do advise when this feature is launched

many thanks

dan

Hi

I have my master logins for Moz but just wandering if i can grant a degree of access to employees via their own logins (just 1 person at this stage) since i dont want to share mine (since use for other stuff too) and ideally dont want them to have full admin permission (such as being able to delete campaigns) ?

Cheers

Dan

i agree with Billy

the 2 topic/genres are so closely related i think you will do best by developing out the current site rather than start a new site

Many Thanks Conor

Good tip thanks Keri !

Hi

possibly because 'content creator' is not a high enough level of authority to connect via the api.  It could be worth asking them to make sure you are added as a page admin with a higher level of permissions

All Best

Dan

That's great many thanks Vadim ! Any more suggestions  out there ?

Many thanks

Dan

Hi

What words phrases do you think one should research to see what US searchers would use if they want to get an artefact valued such as old jewelry to furniture to sporting memorabilia or just want to get that work of art on the wall valued that they have had in the family for years.

Obviously i will be carrying out kw research (& have been) but just interested in asking some real life Americans what they would search for ?

In the UK its mainly 'Valuations' orientated keywords but in the US its looking like 'Appraisals' related are used much more.

Any local knowledge suggestions appreciated

All Best

Dan